Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) (13 page)

“Very well,” the Kanza leader nodded, “we
shall set out presently.” He turned his attention to their party.
“You may wait in the same tents you occupied previously.”

The Dena’ina leader smiled. “That won’t be
necessary,” he glanced back over the group, “Unless any are too
tired to continue on.” He paused for a moment, meeting each of
their eyes briefly to access their reaction, but when he was met
only with curt nods, he went on to the Kanza, “We shall accompany
you as well.”

The Kanza leader looked ready to argue some
more, and Katya wondered if he would sabotage the test if given the
chance, but he reluctantly relented. The members of the Kanza tribe
hurried back to their own tents with a mixture of excitement and
apprehension. There were several hostile glances shot in their
direction, some of which were aimed at Petra, and Katya felt a pang
of annoyance. How could they still believe that just because she
was born with the mark she was in any way bad? From what Katya had
seen, she was the sweetest woman she’d ever met.

When the Kanza were finally ready to join
them, they set out. It didn’t really matter where they went as long
as they traveled far enough away from their powerstone that its
effects would begin to wear off, so the Kanza leader pointed out
onto the plains where he said would be the safest place to stop and
test it.

It was obvious when they began to reach the
edge of the powerstone’s reach. Several of the Kanza began to have
rather conspicuous changes occur, and not all of them were as
pleasant as Petra’s. Katya could understand why these people would
want to rid themselves of these. One was morphing into a gigantic
bug, mixed with some sort of fish…and the result was not pretty.
Another seemed to be sprouting plant-like appendages over the
entirety of his body, and not only did they look unbecoming, but
they seemed to be causing him pain as well.

“Halt,” the Kanza leader suddenly held up a
hand and all eyes turned towards him. He was glaring at Petra who
stared back at him coolly.

“Yes?” she asked after a moment when he
wasn’t forthcoming with his reasoning for holding them up.

“You are changing back,” he accused her,
pointing a finger in her direction. As for his own changes, Katya
could only see a slight darkening of his skin.

“I never took the flower,” she answered.

“Ha! Why would you not?” he asked, narrowing
his eyes, “is this some kind of joke?” he asked, sweeping his gaze
out over the rest of them. “You just wanted us to come out here
with you so you could laugh at our deformities?” The other Kanza
looked angered by this accusation, those still with human enough
faces to display emotion were now glaring at them, and all were
taking battle stances.

“No,” Petra snapped at him, her patience for
the man obviously wearing thin, relative or no, “I didn’t want to
take it because I like who I am.” She looked at the group of Kanza,
who were still standing ready to attack. “I understand you wanting
to get rid of these atrocities that were committed against us, but
I have lived with mine with the Dena’ina for some time and have
come to not only accept myself as I am, but also to embrace it.
There are things that I can do that others cannot.” She walked over
to the man who was sprouting plants and laid a hand on his
grotesque shoulder, showing no signs of discomfort having done so.
He flinched at her initial touch, sending a dust of pollen from his
appendages out in a cloud, but then relaxed when she showed no
signs of malice. “Lykecan,” she addressed him, “I understand you
wanting to be rid of yours, it causes you constant pain. And you,
Fowler,” she turned to another, offering the same display of
indifference to their less-than-human appearance, “though there are
many advantages to your form, it would come at great sacrifice.” No
one needed her to explain the comment. Fowler had turned into a
great hulking beast, sprouting horns and claws and growing hair all
over. He probably gained massive strength from his new form, but he
would always be hailed as a monster. There was not enough human in
him, as there was with Petra, to balance it out.

Petra wasn’t finished, and she strolled over
to the Kanza leader, who watched her warily. “But you, Uncle, what
are you so eager to rid of yours? Are you so blinded by your hatred
of the Dark King, that you can’t see the gift that life has given
you? You can barely see the change and it makes you invincible to
attack!” She grabbed a rock off the ground and bashed him in the
arm with it. Katya and several others rushed forward to stop her,
but the motion was finished before any of them got close enough to
grab her hand.

The Kanza leader didn’t move a muscle; he
just stood still staring at her as her hand flew towards him with
the rock. He didn’t move as the rock connected either, the clash of
it hitting him sounding more like two rocks hitting than of rock
against flesh. Then Katya understood. His ‘deformity’ was that his
skin was like stone. He and Petra faced off for a tense minute, and
no one moved.

He finally spoke. “There are other
disadvantages to such a state,” he told her, breaking off eye
contact and closing his eyes as he sighed. “Having no feeling would
be very lonely.”

Katya considered this. Before having met
Hunter, such a statement would have been a mystery to her, but now,
knowing the simple joy of feeling his skin against hers, the Kanza
leader’s sorrow made sense. She had a sudden thought.

“When we first found the field,” she said,
and the attention of the group turned to her, though several looked
annoyed that she had broken the moment, “Petra walked into it and
turned back to the blocked human state.”

She paused a moment, but no one seemed to
know where she was going with this yet so she continued. “What if
there’s a way to temporarily block the changes from manifesting,”
she looked upwards in thought and waved her hand, “like a bracelet
woven with the flowers or even just cultivating a field of the
plants somewhere in or near the village. It would be just like
having the powerstone, but you wouldn’t have to give up the good
that comes along with it.”

Katya glanced around the group. No one
offered another suggestion; they just didn’t know enough about it
to know what they could do, but all were looking thoughtful. Hunter
was the one who broke the silence. “Well, we won’t know anything
until we test the plant and see if it really does as it is rumored
to do. Even though we saw what it did to Petra when she stepped
into the field, we still need to try it out.”

Lykecan stepped forward and held out a
foliage-covered hand. He spoke through lips that were too hidden by
leaves for Katya to see moving. “We are more than far enough that
the effects will be able to be seen. Let me try it now.” Katya
peered at Petra and saw that her changes were not at full effect,
if this was the man’s only partial change…

She took one of the flowers out of the cart
and handed it to him. They didn’t really know what they were
supposed to do with it, if it should be mashed into a pulp, or
dried and put in a tea, but the story had told of the man simply
eating it, so that’s what Lykecan did. He brought the flower up to
where Katya assumed his mouth must still be, and the vines covering
his face absorbed it into him.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then his
features began to blur, the protrusions of vegetation sticking out
around him slowly being drawn back in to his body. The
transformation held them all transfixed, holding their breaths,
while it turned him completely human again.

When he stood before them as the man they had
left the village with, with not even the slightest hint of green in
his complexion, they all let out the collective breath they were
holding.

“It worked,” Lykecan exclaimed, holding his
hands out in front of him.

“At least for the moment,” the Kanza leader
said, still not willing to admit that the flower was truly
real.

“No,” Lykecan disagreed adamantly, “It’s
gone, I can feel it! Even back at the village with the power of the
stone dampening the effects, I could always feel a dull ache. But
now, it’s totally gone!” The pure bliss on his face of finally
being free of pain was plain for all to see.

“I want to try it too!” another of the party
came forward, a woman if Katya remembered correctly, but in her
current state couldn’t tell. She wasn’t sure what the intention of
the mages who had made her particular changes were, but they seemed
to have gone horribly wrong.

Once again, they all watched with rapt
attention while the woman transformed back into human shape. The
result was rather morbidly fascinating, but still, Katya found that
she couldn’t look away.

Another man came forward, and Katya dutifully
handed him the flower. She held another out to the Kanza leader,
offering him to try it for himself, but he did not take it right
away. He looked at the plant, then at Petra, finally lifting his
gaze to meet Katya’s. Then, he waved off the offer. She took that
as a good sign.

As the last man inhaled the flower, so eager
was he to be rid of the altered form, the Kanza leader watched him
closely. He looked into the man with his magesight, Katya could
tell by the suddenly far-away look he got in his eyes even as he
stared straight at him. After a moment, he blinked and focused on
Katya’s waiting face.

“I guess it really is the flower,” he
grudgingly gave in. “And you can show us how to find more of
these?”

“Yes,” Hunter drew out the map he had been
working on and laid it out on the ground before them. He pointed
out a few landmarks and the Kanza leader nodded in acknowledgement
of recognition.

“Hmph,’ he grunted as he rolled up the map
and stuffed it away in his pocket, not meeting Katya’s eyes, “the
Kanza powerstone is yours then.”

CHAPTER 8

Kali watched the Bricrui-infested manor from
a safe distance, hidden in the forest. She could feel her plan
working. Soon it would come to a head. There would be no stopping
her then. The blood-magic that had ruined her ancestor’s lives
would end the descendants of the Dark King once and for all.

She checked the wards that kept the people
confined within the walls. They were keyed to the Lost One, his
life kept them pent up in their prison. And his death would release
them. The new outbreak would be exactly what Kali needed to further
her plan.

Like a dam broken, their evil would wash out
upon the world, the floodgates opened.

But not yet. She needed to be patient,
silently building up the infection until it had spread too far to
be stopped. Once the Lost Ones in the manor were released, they
needed to spread the Bricrui too quickly to be contained again. Too
quickly for any ‘cure’ of chokeroot they may have come up with to
deal with.

She sent another tendril of magic towards the
place, feeding the curse. Making it spread through walls and
ceilings and floors, into the hearts of all those around. And
making it take hold on the human host far quicker than it would
have if left to run its course. Her intimate knowledge of the spell
made it easy for her to gain access to it in all the victims, and
she almost laughed out loud. It would also have let her break it,
had she desired to do so. But that was not what she was going to
do. She sent more magic in their direction.

When the manor quieted down, and the sun
dipped down over the horizon, Kali made her way into the house. She
passed through the wards easily, having helped to set them up with
the Lost One. She had no fear of contracting the disease herself.
Not only could she break the curse upon herself, but she had no
doubt that she had not even a drop of the Dark King’s blood within
her. Her family line had been pure, one of the only ones who
actually cared to keep their blood clean.

She walked through the walls quietly,
searching for signs of the curse. She didn’t have to look far
before she ran across the first one. She quickly cloaked her
appearance so that the thing wouldn’t sense her and moved silently
to the edge of the wall. The grotesque beast shuffled down the
hallway, sniffing the air every once in a while. She took care to
mask her smell as well. Though how the thing could smell anything
over its own ripe stench was beyond Kali. She may be safe from
turning into one of the things herself, she had no desire to be
killed by one.

She watched it with pleasure. Seeing the
results of her labors was very satisfying.

As the creature moved past a doorway, a
shadow passed underneath it, and the thing must have heard some
sound from within. It whipped its head around, sending pus flying,
and banged on the door.

Whimpering began on the other side of the
door, and Kali watched with curiosity. If there was anyone still
unaffected at this point, it must be because they didn’t have any
of the Dark King’s blood. Kali had been rather surprised at just
how prolific the evil man had been. She had known that he’d had
enough illegitimate children to have spread his cursed seed across
the population, but in the entire manor, this was the first person
Kali had seen to have not been affected. She had been correct in
her thinking that the entirety of this horrible place was indeed
lost.

This ‘Bricrui’, as the Lost Ones called the
things, had progressed far enough to have lost its mental
capacities so much so that it no longer understood how to open the
door. It was currently throwing its weight into it instead, over
and over again. The door bowed inwards with each push, splinters
cracking off.

The whimpering continued behind it and Kali
felt a moment’s sympathy. The woman on the other side was obviously
of pure blood. Perhaps she would save her.

The Bricrui finally got through the door,
cutting itself in the process, but ignoring the gash that now bled
freely. Kali was distracted from finding the woman by the amount of
blood coursing down its side. If the creature bled to death, it
would hardly help her further her plans.